


while you're young enough to love

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Tragedy, Boys In Love, M/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:20:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25296073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Ma used to tell him, she’d say, “Stevie, make sure you get married while you’re still young enough to believe in love.”Didn’t never make sense to him, not really. Not until James Buchanan Barnes punched Timothy Scotts in the nose and then busted Steve’s lip too.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	while you're young enough to love

Ma used to tell him, she’d say, “Stevie, make sure you get married while you’re still young enough to believe in love.”

Didn’t never make sense to him, not really. Not until James Buchanan Barnes punched Timothy Scotts in the nose and then busted Steve’s lip too. 

He asked him that day, more told him really, “I gotta marry you real fast.”

Bucky asked, “Yeah? ‘N why’s that?”

Steve has smiled real big, blood dripping over a loose tooth. “Ma says gotta do it while ‘m young enough for love.”

Bucky laughed at him. Earned his own bloody lip for his trouble.

But Steve? He knew. He  _ knew _ he was going to marry Bucky. While he was young enough to love.

-

They get married in Father Mclaughlin’s cathedral. Steve bullies Leroy Toole into “officiating” and they all three know. They’re too young, too gay, and too catholic for this to really stick.

“It’s symbolic,” Steve grouses.

“It’s silly,” Bucky giggles.

“It’s going to get us all in trouble,” Leroy worries.

Steve kisses Bucky. Kisses him under the glow of the Virgin Mary, stained and moon-lit, and he kisses him with all the belief in his body. 

“I love you,” Steve gasps. He’s young, but he knows it.

-

Steve gets real sick, but it’s Leroy who succumbs to pneumonia. He and Bucky, they go to the funeral and they stand too close. 

The Virgin Mary glows over them, and Steve coughs so hard no one says anything when Bucky wraps an arm around him.

His ma though, she looks at him real close. “Marry while you’re young enough to believe in love, Stevie boy. But don’t fall too soon. There’s a lot of hearts out there, and you don’t want to give yours away too soon.”

She says it like she says “Stevie, don’t you skip your medicine.” 

Like she knows more than she’s saying.

Like she saw the sign in the Barnes’ yard before it went up.

-

Bucky writes Steve every day.

Steve writes back when he can, but he’s sick more than not, and ma’s at work more than she’s home. 

But Steve scrapes by and he writes what he can and he draws what he remembers.

Bucky’s smile under stained glass shame.

Blood on his knuckles in the alley behind the market.

The cut of Bucky’s jaw and their hands held tight behind calla lilies.

“I wanna go,” Steve tells his ma. “Just for a weekend.” 

Ma hems and she haws and she writes Ma Barnes. She packs Steve up and bundles him tight. “You’re growing like a weed, Steve. Just be careful with your love. It ain’t cheap and you only got so much to give.”

“You’re wrong, Ma,” Steve tells her gently. “If it’s all I got, I got plenty of love.”

Ma smiles at him, but it's a watery mess and she tries to hide it from him.

-

The Barnes’ new place, well, it’s a damn  _ farm _ . 

Steve is allergic to everything, but he’s also happier than he’s ever been. “C’mon Buck! Just a little higher!”

“I dunno, Stevie, that’s getting kinda shake,” Bucky calls from below. “Maybe just wait until the lower apples are ripe?”

Steve ain’t one to wait though, not on apples or weddings or kisses or fun. He stretches, fingers brushing the bright red skin and then he falls.

Falls. Down and down and it’s green and brown, there’s snow, there’s gun fire and smoke.

-

Steve wakes, and he’s not reaching for apples.

He wakes, and he’s not a runtling anymore, and Bucky’s by his side but he’s  _ falling _ .

Ma used to tell him, she’d say, “Steve, get married while you’re young enough to believe in love.”

And Steve? He watched his pa die on a boat to a better land. Never saw his ma fade while he was at another’s house.

He watched the Barnes’ split, and Becca’s husband-

He watched all of that and he didn’t get it.

But he married Bucky under a Virgin Mary Moonlight when they were too young and too gay and too catholic.

And now he’s watching Bucky  _ fall _ , down like he did over an apple, and now he  _ gets _ it. ‘Cause Steve ain’t old, but he’ll never love again.


End file.
